Nepotism: (noun) the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs.

On Burisma’s website is two press releases talking about American’s who have been named “Outside Directors” to Burisma’s board.

American Financier Devon Archer joined the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings: Dated April 22, 2014 – This is the sort of person you’d expect to be named to the Board of a large Oil company. He’s worked for years in International Finance and “developing investment strategies on managing private equity capital for investments in debt instruments with fixed income and real estate investments.” His role is said to be interacting not just with current investors, but new investors based in the U.S.

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In other words, he’s tasked with bringing American investors to the table?Hunter Biden joins the team of Burisma Holdings: Undated – Here’s the Nepotism? Or maybe he honestly has the experience to hold this job? Here’s how Hunter is described:

R. Hunter Biden is a counsel to Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, a national law firm based in New York, USA, which served in cases including “Bush vs. Gore”, and “U.S. vs. Microsoft”. He is one of the co-founders and a managing partner of the investment advisory company Rosemont Seneca Partners, as well as chairman of the board of Rosemont Seneca Advisors. He is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Masters Program in the School of Foreign Service.

Mr. Biden has experience in public service and foreign policy. He is a director for the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, The Center for National Policy, and the Chairman’s Advisory Board for the National Democratic Institute. Having served as a Senior Vice President at MBNA bank, former U.S. President Bill Clinton appointed him an Executive Director of E-Commerce Policy Coordination under Secretary of Commerce William Daley. Mr. Biden served as Honorary Co-Chair of the 2008 Obama-Biden Inaugural Committee.

Mr. Biden is a member of the bar in the State of Connecticut, and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court of Federal Claims. He received a Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

R. Hunter Biden is also a well-known public figure. He is chairman of the Board of the World Food Programme U.S.A., together with the world’s largest humanitarian organization, the United Nations World Food Programme. In this capacity he offers assistance to the poor in developing countries, fighting hunger and poverty, and helping to provide food and education to 300 million malnourished children around the world.
BTW – Devon Archer is also a co-founder and managing partner of Rosemont Seneca Partners.

Mr. Biden has an impressive set of credentials with government service dating back to the Clinton Administration. Not just any old schmuck gets to be a Professor at Georgetown Univ, or to practice law in front of the Supreme Court. But, he is the Vice President’s son, and it raises the question – did Rosemont Seneca get chosen for this because of their worthiness, or because he’s the VP’s son?

Burisma’s territories

Burisma’s website says that Ukraine began tapping fossil fuels in the 1880’s but the basins have been largely unexplored because of their depth. The company was founded in 2002, and the management team is all Ukrainian. However, the Board of Directors all seem to be from outside Ukraine.

A report on the Huffington Post says that the White House brushed off questions about Hunter Biden’s new job. That report went on to talk about how this isn’t automatically a conflict of interest. “It can’t be that because your dad is the vice president, you can’t do anything,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Another expert, Richard Painter, who was chief ethics lawyer for former Republican President George W. Bush from 2005 until 2007, is quoted saying that financial conflict of interest laws and regulations for government officials do not apply to the president and vice president, and that even if they did apply to Obama and Joe Biden, thee laws wouldn’t apply to their children.

According to a report by Buzzfeed, the story is even screwier. Burisma is completely owned by a company based in Cyprus, Brociti Investments Limited. That company is owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, who was energy minister and deputy national security council chair under Yanukovych. Other records in Cyprus (Burisma is registered in that country) show another Director named Aleksander Kwasniewski. A man by that name was Poland’s president from 1995 to 2005.

According to a 2004 profile in The New Yorker, Devon Archer is an insider fund raiser for political campaigns. In college he’d been roomates with Christopher Heinz, Kerry’s stepson and also served as co-chair of the national finance committee for Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

That Devon Archer was named to Burisma’s Board on April 22 coincides with Biden’s visit to Ukraine. For that visit, Biden brought along Oil and Gas Industry experts as part of the aid package to Ukraine.

In any case – if we look around, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a whole array of companies and people from the U.S. or Western Europe getting their mitts onto business opportunities in Ukraine. This one happens to stand out because it’s the VP’s son getting on the gravy train.

About David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer living in Silicon Valley. He primarily writes about electric vehicles, clean energy systems, climate change, peak oil and related issues. When not writing he indulges in software projects and is sometimes employed as a software engineer. David has written for sites like PlugInCars and TorqueNews, and worked for companies like Sun Microsystems and Yahoo.

About David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer living in Silicon Valley. He primarily writes about electric vehicles, clean energy systems, climate change, peak oil and related issues. When not writing he indulges in software projects and is sometimes employed as a software engineer. David has written for sites like PlugInCars and TorqueNews, and worked for companies like Sun Microsystems and Yahoo.